God is beautiful

Whenever people see this picture of Govinda, God, they are most usually astonished, aside from His being blue, or His wearing jewelry, by the fact that He is beautiful. They would say, why? And I would kid them, why not? Then they would say that it's very hard to believe for God to actually look like this amazing person. And I'd say, He is God and He wants all of us to love Him, He's supposed to be amazing. After this volley of innocent inquiries, a few actually hit a sensible question which is a great opportunity to discuss the further glories of God. Questions like "How did you know God looks like that?" "Who told you He actually looks like that?" etc. 

Aside from the Holy Bible there are other scriptures which similarly contain truths directly revealed by God or as told by His devotees. From the Bible however we are not given a very detailed description of God, Who is simply described as an ocean of light, or a burning bush; in the Qu'ran, it is even considered bad to describe the Lord. These conditions do not make these scriptures false or less important, but to get a better picture, we have to resort to other scriptures that actually describe God in a more detailed manner. Scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Samhita, provide us with authoritative facts regarding the name, form, abode and activities of the Supreme Lord. In these scriptures we get to know not only what God looks like, how He smells, what color are His palms, etc., but also His exact address, who lives with Him there, and what His favorite activities are. 

Therefore scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita are like a mother, and God is our Father Who we have not yet seen. Naturally, the only person who can tell us truthfully about a father we have never seen is our mother. So we regard scripture as an authority about God. If we don't believe in God then we got nothing to talk about. But if one believes in the existence of God, and believes that the scriptures are His words, then he cannot deny scripture as a proper foundation for this belief. 

What God looks like as described in the scriptures is the absolute truth. Fortunately, there are three ways to check whether something is the absolute truth or not. Aside from scripture; there is guru, or the pure devotee of God and knower of the actual conclusion of scripture; then God Himself as the Lord in the heart. One can know if something is the truth or not by sifting it through These three. It is an absolute necessity that all three must be in agreement. Scripture alone is dangerous without the other two, for we are left to rely on our own imperfect understanding. Hearing from guru only without checking scriptures is similarly unwise, for we are presenting ourselves open for exploitation by false gurus who are merely cheaters and charlatans.  And the danger of simply relying on listening to the Lord in the heart is that it may not be the Lord we are actually hearing, it may just be our mind or something else. 

With scripture, guru, and the Lord Himself within our hearts, being there ready to give us guidance, we must be able to appreciate the fact that God provides all necessary facilities required for us to actually know Him. But sometimes our hearts are so hardened that even God, in His form, or as His holy name, is right there in front of us we doubt Him, His beauty, His opulence, etc. We think, I know what God is supposed to look like. "He's an old guy, right Michelangelo? They said He's the oldest, so I suppose He must have long hair, all white. And I've heard He's the strongest too, so perhaps His body is buff, with six pack abs." That is our mind's idea of God. 

Yes, based on our material body, the oldest has white hair. Based on our material body the strongest is muscular. But that's where the fault of this theory lies. We are judging God according to the material conditions of our bodies. This is all speculation. Based upon ignorance of the absolute truth revealed in scripture clearly saying that God has no material body. That His form is eternal and spiritual. 

I find it ironic that people tend to question the reality of a form that is in fact the only real manifestation in this dimension in a sense  that it will exist beyond the dissolution of this realm. And on the other hand believe firmly the forms of themselves, their loved ones which will eventually disappear in time. God's form is not only beautiful, it is real, it is eternal.  And I tell myself everyday that instead of struggling with the why, to try to realize the plain truth that I know nothing, and that in order for me to know I must approach those who know. I have to place my faith in the fool proof process of the three checkpoints, scriptures, guru, and the Lord in the heart. And They all confirm that God is the most beautiful. He is in fact the source of all beauty. 

But what is more important, my teacher said, is not to see God. For to see God is actually easy. What is better than seeing God is loving God. He concluded that in fact to see God is to love God. Jesus Christ, another authority in God, said that the greatest commandment is that we love God the Father, with all our heart, mind, and entire being. In other words, all saintly personalities agree on this conclusion. God made it so easy for us to love Him. He is the most beautiful. He is supremely lovable. Now it is only up to us to open our hearts and love Him. 

The greatest gift God gave us this day and age is His Holy Names. God and His Holy Names are non-different. His Holy Names are as beautiful as God. And when one chants His Holy Names, he easily comes to the platform of love for the Lord. Therefore it is stressed in scripture that there is no other way in this age of quarrel and confusion but to chant the Holy Names. Haribol!

Most fallen

Every morning, I make it a habit to meditate upon all the wrong I had done to others. I go over them one by one, starting with the people closest to me, my family, my relatives, my friends. Doing this, I realize, and am reminded in the process, that I had inflected pain on almost all of them in one way or another. Then I go over the people outside my intimate circle, people I had encountered in school, in work, or just someone walking by the street. I try to recall what I may have done. There are so many people I have hurt, so much pain inflicted, and that's just for my classmates in elementary school. And what about all the people who didn't even know that I've offended them? Like mentally criticizing a person walking by, or talking stink behind someone's back, or taking advantage of someone while they are unaware. And that's just for human beings. As a kid, how many dogs, cats, have I kicked with or without reason? How many times have I burned down or flood up an anthill? How many times have I roasted dragon flies on a stake or ripped them apart just to see how they'd react? How many murdered animals have I consumed in my lifetime? And that's just when I was a kid. A lot of living entities have suffered, a lot of hearts were broken because I got none. 

But the worse thing is that in spite of all I had done, I can still make myself believe that I am holy, I am better than others, I have the right to judge, I am sinless. And that is my disease. This is the reason why I am not tasting love for God and others. This arrogance hardened my heart. A hard heart that is so quick to anger, so masterful in defending one's pride. A heart so sensitive to faults by others but so tolerant of his own faults. 

My teacher said that this anger towards those who have done us wrong comes from the feeling that we are worthy. That we deserve better. We deserve to be treated with more respect. We deserve a better situation. Etc. And this is also possible only because of our forgetfulness of our own faults. I am faultless therefore it is only right that I be treated with the manner according to my greatness. 

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in His 3rd prayer, clearly stated the qualifications of a great personality: he is humble, he is tolerant, he is always ready to offer all respect to others without expecting respect in return, and he is feeling lower than the straw in the street. In other words, this person described feels he is the most unqualified, the most sinful, the most fallen. When one is in this state of mind, my teacher continued, no matter what wrong or evil may come to him he will feel no anger.  Because he is always aware of his faults, he feels in his heart that the wrongs he had done to others far surpasses the wrongs he is suffering. Therefore he feels he deserve, not to have a better situation, but the suffering he is receiving. Being in this state of mind of feeling the most fallen, feeling the most unqualified, he is actually qualified. 

When we become angry at our situation, or hold anger towards somebody, my teacher further stated, we are eventually angry at God, because He is the Supreme controller. Why did He allow this to happen to me of all people? Why did He allow jerks to walk the earth? Etc. In this way, feeling that God is our enemy we are denied of the opportunity to experience being under His shelter by loving surrender: I am the most fallen, I have no where else to go, with my sins no one can love me unconditionally like You do, You are my only rest and refuge, please protect me. 

A blessed day

Most people believe that in this day and age, it is easier to find a needle in a haystack than to find a person who is without envy. Because of the fruitlessness of the search they simply give up and say that perhaps no such a person exists. In fact because enviousness is so common in everyone, some even think that to be envious is actually good to some extent. It serves, as some would put it, as spice to our endeavors. It helps to drive a person to achieve, to struggle, to succeed. 

Today is a most glorious day. Because today I have known a person who I can say is free of envy. While it is easy for most people to declare "I'm not envious," for the sake of simply showing people how holy one is, the actual state of freedom from enviousness naturally surfaces as symptoms of related behaviors like humility, tolerance and respectfulness. When these are present then most likely envy is not. I have already heard from people the glories of this person's character, and it has been my constant prayer that I'd also be able to see, even just a glimpse, what they had seen in him that was so great. Today I felt that God finally answered my prayer. I have come to a sort of an affirmation of belief. 

I am an envious person, and although I am suffering from it, I'm completely clueless of how to get the feeling out of my heart. It comes automatically. I feel it is beyond my power to rid myself of this disease of envy. But listening to him today, something in my heart tells me that "this is the person who can teach me how not to be envious ever again." I've heard him talk many times as a teacher, and I politely listened like a regular student, but I believe it is only today that I have trully appreciated, and in the depths of my being accepted a Teacher. 

The amazing thing was that what he had said was not really something new even, he had been telling me those things long before. In a different manner, he reiterated the principle of humility, of feeling oneself to be lower than the straw in the street as an absolute requirement in attaining success in spiritual life. A person who actually feels he is lower than the dirt in the ground cannot be envious. He is not envious because he cannot find in himself the feeling that he is a worthy person. He feels instead that he is the most fallen, the most undeserving of respect, and the lowest. Ordinary people may say that they also feel that same way, that they feel that people are above them. Yes, people may also feel that way, especially if in truth they are actually that way: most fallen. But instead of humility what they will feel is envy towards those above them, because they feel they deserve to be above, they feel they deserve respect, etc.  After all, isn't it a basic human right to be protected from being belittled or insulted based on his low status? But the feeling of being the lowest, felt by a truly humble person doesn't necessarily come from being the most sinful or the most wretched, but is out of the grace of God and the mercy of His devotee. Only by the grace of God and the mercy of His pure loving servant can we overcome enviousness and the arrogance borne out of pride. We cannot simply immitate or cheat other people, for the sake of collecting followers or admirers, into believing that we are humble or that we are without envy. Eventually, because we are not getting any happiness from pretending, the hiding behind the mask will exhaust us. 

If one wants to be free of the envy that poisons the heart with anger, jelousy, arrogance and other inauspicious elements, then one must simply look for a person who has already freed himself from all these things, accept him as a teacher, render some service unto him, and surrender at his feet all one's self-centered notions about life, and instead approach as someone who doesn't know. That is the proper way of learning how to be free not only of envy but of all other undesirable things in one's life that hinder us from tasting real happiness. 

Beg forgiveness

Today is Ekadasi, an auspicious day for advancement in spiritual endeavors. Today is a good day to meditate upon our faults and offenses against others. In His 3rd prayer, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructed us how to really chant the Holy Names: be respectful, be tolerant, and be humble. I am the most fallen, I am the most sinful, I am the most unworthy, this should be our state of mind. 

So today, I beg forgiveness for all I have offended in my mind and in my actions. I ask forgiveness from my pet fish who I sometimes neglect. I ask forgiveness from the plants, especially Tulsi, who I forget to water. I ask forgiveness from the little insects I have squished, intentionally or otherwise. I ask forgiveness from the dogs waiting for their food. I ask forgiveness from the cows, the pigs, the chickens, consumed in my house, and I just tolerated it. I ask forgiveness from Mother Earth for my greed and carelessness. 

I ask forgiveness for the people around me whom I disrespected: for judging and criticizing them; for not receiving them politely and making them comfortable; for neglecting their wellbeing, their health and their happiness; for thinking bad about them, for talking stink behind their back, for using them as amusement in gossip, for making fun of them. I ask forgiveness for destroying their trust, for taking lightly their love, for not being thankful for their efforts. I ask forgiveness from them for not working harder to give them the real happiness of love for God. I ask forgiveness for seeing them as bodies, as objects of my pleasure, instead of what they really are: spirit souls, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, God, whose real function is to please Him, not me. 

I ask forgiveness for all the people who have given their lives to the Lord, including those who are trying to come to that state, for not desiring their association, for feeling anger at their advice, for envying their advancement, for finding, judging and criticizing their faults, for neglecting their wellbeing. 

I ask forgiveness, most of all, from Govinda, God, Who is the Father of all living creatures, Who loves all His children more than they can ever love their very selves, and to His confidential loving servant Who is the well-wisher of all living entities. When we hurt someone, like a mother to her dear child, Govinda's delicate heart is pierced. When this happens, we lose all attraction to God and we stray further into the darkness of material existence. 

Thus, our relationship with others must not be taken lightly. From the greatest living entity down to a simple ant, we must give all respect, all tolerance, all our love. Because God loves them. We must especially give respect and love to those who are dedicating their lives to God. As pleasing them will make God happy, displeasing them similarly makes God displeased. 

In the end, let Jesus' commandment guide us in this matter: Love the Supreme Lord with all your heart, mind, and entire being. And like unto it, love others. If we can make this instruction our life and soul, this will make Govinda very happy, and in turn will give us perfection in life. 

Haribol!

Smile

I was chanting on my beads and Radha was on the other side of the room playing  with her dolls. I opened my eyes just in time when Radha was about to put something on the floor. Our eyes met for sometime. And just to annoy her I smiled at her, an exaggerated smirk in fact to hit the point. Then she did the most unexpected thing. She responded with a smile. It was that small disarming smile she uses whenever she breaks something important or she left her umbrella in school, again. I was surprised. She was normally indifferent, sometimes indignant even, to my teasings. But now she responded. I was happy already just being with her, but to be able to force out a smile from her is like a blessing. So although the moment was brief, one breath-length at most, I was awed. What had just happened? I asked the universe.

Then I remembered the smile of Govinda, God, Who loves us so dearly and Whom we should also dearly love with all our heart, mind, and entire being. This according to all saintly teachers is the only way to real happiness, peace and satisfaction in this world.  In my heart sprang a prayer for us all, that before we come to the end of our lives, I pray that we constantly see Govinda's beautiful face smiling at us, and in the depth of our hearts we be able to smile back in love. 

Haribol

Jesus' Greatest Commandment

A Christian Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ's clear and unambiguous instruction was that we love God, the Father with all our heart, mind, body and entire being. And like unto it, love His other children as much as we love ourselves. (Mathew 22:37)

My Teacher, who is a loving servant and follower of this instruction of Lord Jesus Christ, thus His bona fide representative, instructed me: 

A person can only be truly happy, truly satisfied when he is tasting love for God.

The easiest way to come into that transcendental platform of love for the Lord

is by regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names.

The bible said: Our help is in the Name of the  Lord. 

Save me of God by thy Name. (Psalm)

"Haribol" means chant, sing, glorify the Holy Names of God. 

Haribol and be happy!

A scene from "Magnolia"

Here's a scene from the film Magnolia where Quiz Kid Donnie Smith robs the electronics shop where he works, to get himself braces (although he has perfect teeth). He desperately wanted braces to connect with the person to whom he is infatuated with, and who happened to have braces. After robbing the store he realized his stupidity and decided to return the money. Climbing up the roof, he fell to the pavement after a rain of frogs hit him in the face. He ended up breaking his teeth--making him actually need the braces. Bleeding and in physical and emotional pain he cried out those words which pretty much verbalized the subtlest of human agonies. But there is someone we can love with all our heart, mind and entire being. If we take a single step to be near to Him, God takes a thousand steps closer.

On watering plants

The day was hot, and the plants were drying up. The kids were just lounging so I asked them to water the Tulsi plants with me. Being first timers they thought watering is just pouring water anywhere in the plant. Most were simply wetting the leaves. So, I showed them where the best place to pour water can be found: at the base of the plant nearest the roots.

While at it, I shared to them an ancient wisdom my teacher told me about watering plants. Living life only for one’s own satisfaction, he said, is like watering the leaves of a plant. No matter how much water we pour into the leaves, the plant will not be benefited. Similarly, when we endeavor to please ourselves, happiness seems to elude us even more, all we get is frustration, pain and anything but pleasure. If we want to be satisfied, saintly teachers, like Jesus, recommend that we live to please the Supreme Lord, the root. He said: You shall love the Supreme Lord, with all your heart, mind, body and entire being. And like unto it, love His other children.  

This is the path to a life of satisfaction. Where is this based upon? It is based upon the absolute truth about our real essence. That we are not our bodies or our minds. We are spirit souls inside these bodies. The body and the mind are just vessels, we are the substance. Being spiritual in essence, we can never be satisfied by things from this world which are mostly matter. What we need, being spirit souls is spiritual food. Food for us is love, not for ourselves but for the Supreme Spirit, God. Only when we love the Supreme Soul, can we be satisfied in our existence as spiritual beings. Only when we love the Supreme Father will we be able to love our brothers. No amount of material wealth, fame, beauty, and power can satiate the longing of the soul for happiness. Only love for the Lord, like what Jesus said, can complete us.

The Stone

Children, remember this stone? This was the thing you were all fighting over in the pool last Sunday. There was a lot of shouting, grabbing each other's hair, bad words, crying. Friendships were jeopardized all for the sake of this little stone. It seemed like your hearts, being too attached to this thing, became like it--hard stone.  The amazing thing was that after swimming none remembered to take it home. Naturally, outside the water, when the play is over, the stone was just any other stone. When you're not too attached to the stone, you can see it as it truly is.


In life too there are stones we fight over. Some are really heavy some are really shiny. Some we really need some we need because of our wants. There are wars because of these stones. When stones are really pretty and shiny it's hard to remember they are just stones. We are tricked like little kids in a pool. We don't notice how it hardens our hearts. We forget they are just stones until we are out of the pool, out of this world of stones. 

In life we need to acquire stuff, for us to maintain our bodies, but we must be able to see that these are just stuff. These are not what life is meant to be. In this world full of miseries in the form of diseases, old age, and death, we are not meant to simply labor for stuff, but to enable us to get out of this miserable existence.

 Only when we realize our true essence will we be able to know what we really need. The truth is that we are spirit not matter, we are eternal spirit-souls in this temporary material body. While we keep the material body alive with material food, we feed the spirit, ourselves in fact, with spiritual food. What does the spirit need? The spirit soul is happy when it is fulfilling its natural function. What is our natural function? Being spiritual beings our happiness is in rendering loving service to the Supreme Spirit, God. That too answers our eternal position which is loving servants. This is not just spiritual life, but this is our real life.

My dear atheist

We must be kind to everyone. And my Spiritual Teacher told me that kindness comes in different forms. We must show kindness even to the atheists by defeating their arguments. Here's something I ripped off from a thread where I had a head to head with an atheist. I usually can tolerate a lot of nonsense in the web but this is a different thing. May God forgive me if I was a little angry. Eventhough He doesn't need me to defend Him in this way, as I am very incapable of parroting my Teacher's wisdom about God, but I pray that he accepts my anger as a circumstance of my love no matter how little it is.

***

To me atheism is not just the belief that there is no God, it is a belief that the atheist is God. The universe cannot exist without a controller. Even science has to admit that a cause is needed to achieve an effect. A bang must have a trigger. Who pulled the trigger? Unless everything is random, everything just happened to appear out of nowhere. So that explains the many patterns all around us. It just so happens that the sun keeps rising in the east and sets in the west. It just so happen that the sun is there and the earth revolves around it with just the right amount of distance. Even a simple leaf that has a system of functional veins has a design. The existence of the designer is there in the design. There is a controller.

Science, the god of the atheist/humanist, may not call it God, but they cannot deny the need for a source. The atheist keeps on asking "But where is God? There is no God, show me where God is". Well, God is a person basically and like any other person, He doesn't force himself to people who doesn't want to see Him. I mean He is the Lord of the Universe and who are we for Him to show Himself just by our sheer whim? It is said that the atheist's vision that there is no God even comes from God Himself. God doesn't need the belief of atheists like some politician campaigning around town: “love me, believe in me.” God does not cease existing just because some atheist thinks so. God is not affected by disbelief, but the non-believer is.

If an atheist is happy in his life even while denying God's existence then it is only due to God's grace. Each one of us, including the atheists can't even digest our own food. We don’t consciously make our hearts beat do we? How can the atheist deny this? What evidence does he have that God is not helping or loving Him? He is breathing air which he did not create right? The only thing they can point out is "God is not here in front of me." But how can they disprove absolutely that there is no God aside from his not being visually present?

Not many of us have ever been to the moon and seen its surface with our own eyes, yet we believe. Who among us here have actually seen a virus with our naked eyes, yet when he gets a flu he believes the invisible cause? The answer is because we believe in certain authorities. I've never been to the US but I’m a fool to say that there is no USA just because I’ve not seen it with my own two eyes. I have to believe people who'd actually been there. I have to believe in their authority.

So it all boils down to belief in authorities. An atheist trusts his own perfection. He believes he is perfectly intelligent, his eyes are perfect that it can see anything, his senses are the valid source for absolute truth. He believes ironically that he is an authority in God, that he can judge His existence or non-existence. Like there are people who had been to the moon, there are people who had seen God. Now can an atheist deny this? How can he say "you have not seen God, because I've not seen him. I know everything, there's simply no possibility anyone can see God because I myself cannot see Him!" That's basically the mindset of an atheist. I know because I was an atheist. He is so full of belief in himself. Jesus said blessed are those who are pure at heart for they will see God. Who can deny this? Only those who are after being pure at heart, have not seen God are actually qualified to question this. Unless you are pure at heart and still God has not appeared in front you will your conclusion be of any value. Jesus is an authority in God just like Neil Armstrong is an authority on the moon. Unless you have been in the moon yourself will you be able to question Armstrong's revelations. Jesus said be pure at heart first.

If you want to see God, if you’re not just so envious of God that you'd actually want to see Him, then strive to purify your heart. And when it is pure enough and still you don't see Him, then be an atheist, but until then, you are just some frog on a well, denying the existence of the ocean.

Haribol, dear friend.

Yehey for Ekadasi

In Vedic culture, ekadasi has something to do with the 11^th lunar day. It usually occurs twice a month.  The exact astronomical description eludes me, but it is said to be a very auspicious day for engaging in spiritual matters. Those who observe ekadasi avoid all grains and instead eat only fruits, vegetables and milk, and even this, in moderation.

I admit Ekadasi may be a little tough. Quitting meat and alcohol seem easier. Naturally, in an Asian country, avoiding grains is hard. Sometimes I forget it is ekadasi, and I would later realize that it is, too late. I would feel bad, not so much because I have failed to follow the practice but because I know I have displeased my Teacher.

Later, by faithfully hearing from him, I realized more what my Teacher is actually telling me about ekadasi. He revealed to me that ekadasi is not just about staying away from grains. If it were just that, it would be way easier. But it’s not just a fast, it’s actually a chance to not just be pleasing but to be more pleasing. Ekadasi is an opportunity to be more focused in the practice of the life-path my Teacher recommended for me to be able to safely cross this ocean of material existence. This is a good day to practice more restraint in our anger, in our lust, in our talking about nonsense. In the same vein, he said that one has not necessarily practiced ekadasi just by fasting from grains. A lot of people may not be eating grains at this time but that doesn’t make them pleasing.

Fasting from grains has a deeper purport. People following Vedic culture abstain from grains during ekadasi for a number of reasons. First, in order to perform more spiritual activities, rather than just eating, sleeping, mating, etc., people prepare food that can be cooked faster. Cooking grains take too much time so they drop it out of the menu. Another thing is that this is also the best time to wean our senses, especially the tongue, away from its fixations. Above all, ekadasi is sacrifice, even for a day, of giving up our own material pleasures for the pleasure of God. Being more pleasing depends upon the value of the sacrifice.

Isn’t this too a fair description of love? A hungry mother gives up her food to feed her child. Love burns away all self-interest. Ekadasi then is better described as a practice of love. You turn away from the urge of the senses abandoning your self-interest to please someone else. It is God’s desire that we be able to return to Him. When we work to detach ourselves from the clutches of this world we become pleasing to God. For in this way we have a chance to return to Him. Thus our sacrifice in ekadasi, when done in love, is pleasurable to God. This pleasure in turn is dependent upon the level of our love.

If you think not eating grains is a hard enough sacrifice, look into the Vedic scripture Bhagavad Gita, where the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna gave Arjuna a tough lesson in loving sacrifice. Arjuna was to choose between pursuing his own idea of happiness in this world—salvation, morality, and sense gratification--by not fighting his own kinsmen, or to lovingly obey the desire of Sri Krishna and fight in the battle of Kuruksetra as a dutiful warrior. How easy it is to slay your kinsmen whom you love? Hell awaits such offenders. What good is winning a kingdom when all you love and care about are dead? These were Arjuna’s arguments, these were his excuses at first. Sri Krishna told Arjuna that his decision not to fight won’t really matter as the battle will happen with or without him. Everyone in this battlefield has already been killed by Krishna anyway, in the form of time, so Arjuna will just be acting out the will of the Lord. And there’s no cause for lamentation either, for no one really dies--all the warriors, kings and princes in this battle are eternal spirit-souls, and only their carrier-bodies will perish.

Eventually, convinced by the absolute truth and out of his great love for Krishna, Arjuna picked up his bow and arrows and fought, not like a menial soldier, not for his own pleasure or glory, but for the pleasure of the Supreme Lord. In this way, Arjuna’s will has become one with Sri Krishna’s, and this oneness in love between the Lord and His friend and devotee is the actual meaning of yoga.

Today, I practice Ekadasi by being more conscientious with my chanting the Holy Names on my beads or japa, and chanting congregationally with friends or kirtan; I also give added effort in trying to engage people around me to say the Names of God more and get them to taste yoga or loving union with the Lord. These are pleasing activities, these connects me in some way with the Lord. But like I said, just being pleasing is not the goal when one can actually be more pleasing, or even most pleasing.  Sri Krishna said that when one considers himself to be His servant, this person is not actually His servant, but those who are servants of His servants are His true servants. So to be more pleasing to God we must be able to serve His servants.

Today, I meditate upon this truth and in my heart try to search for a snitch of desire to realize this. By myself I can never change my heart which only wants to serve itself.  Only by the mercy of my teacher who is a pure loving servant of the servant of the Lord will I be able to find in my heart the desire to serve selflessly. Only by his mercy will I be able to one day ask those who are hundred times the servant of the servant of the Lord, how I may serve them in love. And only by the mercy of such loving servants will I be able to actually consider performing this service to be my life and soul. Without my Teacher's mercy too will I be in anyway able to know these confidential truths. By pleasing the servant of the servant of the servant with our loving service would really please the Lord, and only when the Lord is pleased upon us will we be able to experience real happiness. 

With this wonderful things in store for today there is no reason to be glum, instead a great Yehey! for Ekadasi. Haribol!

April 11, 2014.

How to be rich

Wanna be rich? Do you really wanna be filthy rich? Read this!

You’re probably expecting this to be just another networking scam, I mean scheme spreading all over the internet like wildfire promising loads of cash. Well I have no selfies posing with thick wads of money stacked into a fan or dramatically spread all over the bed with me lying on it. I don't have a lot of money to tell you the truth, and reading this won’t earn you a dime. All I got is my two cents about the subject. So please read on.

The desire to get rich, stripping away the usual wanting to enjoy more-- more leecher  friends, paid admirers and criers, servants, etc.-- is eventually an issue of security. We want more means to secure for us a steady stream of “happiness” in this life. After all life is too short to be sad. Sounds familiar? Yeah, you might have heard or actually said it back in college when your mouth is at one end of a hose and in the other is a jar of booze. We're so desperate to feel happiness that we jump blindly at the assumption that being rich is synonymous with being happy. I don’t blame myself, hell, I heard that one from school: study hard, get a good job, earn lots of money--to which I add, stash a large portion of it in health care, for you’re gonna need it when you’re on a wheelchair and-- as Ethan Hawke puts it in Reality Bites-- "your balls are filled with tumors."

I guess we’re all just afraid to see our lives quickly pass us by without having experienced a gulp of bliss in this world. Well that’s just natural, who doesn't want bliss? But knowing I want bliss is one thing, and knowing where to get it is another. To think that happiness can be bought like candy from a store is ignorance. Money buys almost everything so it must follow that it can also buy happiness--that's foolish. 

First, I don't see a lot of happy rich people. Yes, they are more comfortable in their big houses, flashy in their clothes, trendy in their new toys, but who knows the state of their hearts? What I hear from time to time instead are rich people addicted to drugs and alcohol, going in and out of rehab or worse the morgue. If a rich person is satisfied with the things money can buy why would he take the trouble of wasting himself in coke? What pain is so great that only an o.d. can ease it? 

Clearly he is not satisfied nor happy. He has access to enjoy his senses but he is not content. He has practically everything but he is empty. All he knows about ecstasy is that it is a pill.  Come to think of it, if in case happiness is for sale, life then would be so much easier—if I wanted to be happy, I'd just rob a bank. But bank robbers and even bankers are not the happiest bunch I know.  

Let me divert a little bit:

Out of his compassion, my teacher--from outside of school actually--shared to me his story about a bicycle he was going to receive on Christmas day. Basically that year for him was 360 days of anticipation, intensifying as the big day drew near. In his mind, he had made all the plans where he was to ride the bike, he was guessing what his friends would say, etc. He was so sure in his heart that this bike is the one, this bike will complete him. Then the big day came and he opened the big box under the tree, saw the bike and expected the happiness.  And for a while it did made him happy, the first minutes being the best. But after a few days, it dawned on him, his bike was just another thing. That early on he realized that no thing coming from this world can ever make anyone happy. And he was right. 

We all have our own versions of this anecdote, our bicycles come to us in different forms. Mine, to cite one, comes in a more pathetic form: paper. I used to love receiving neat little pieces of paper with my name on it written in fat fancy texts--most call it a certificate. I used to hang it on my wall every time I get one. With the number of paper I get, I need a wall the size of a football field—just kidding. The point is how much paper do I actually need to receive to really feel I'd finally nailed it? I did not know. Until he enlightened me about how ridiculous and pointless my farming for recognition was. Bicycles and certificates are those little cute things that are not really considered as things even. Fancy cars, mansions, million dollar bags, those, are things that anyone would definitely recognize as neat things. The thing is we are actually clueless of whether something could make us happy or not, so we try and we try and we try and we try, but we "can’t get no satisfaction." Actually it is impossible to be happy when we are struggling to be happy. The struggle itself drains us much of our innocence, our ideals and whatever little humanity we have left for a chance of a little sip of nectar out of life.  But that’s another story.

My teacher then added: Don’t worry too much about getting rich. The worse thing that could happen to being poor is starve to death. We don’t immediately see people actually starving to death do we?. Take the hobos, and the crazies, they practically have nothing but they’re still around. I mean, yes there are millions of people starving in the world, and thousands may be actually dying of hunger, but this number is relatively small compared to the people dying of heart attacks, stroke, cancer because of over eating. Tell me, how many people are actually trying to gain weight? The Biggest Gainer show is yet to be seen. The roads are filled with joggers, panting, suffering the excess weight of their bodies. The problem of the world is not hunger for food, the problem is hunger for substance, for life. As food can be bought by money, substance and life can be purchased by something else.

Jesus said don’t worry about not having material riches or even worrying for your survival. For God loves you more than the care-less birds in the sky, or the adequately clothed wildflowers in the meadows.  All the saintly teachers say that real wealth is love for God. Love for God is even better than seeing God. Being spiritual in essence, love for the Supreme Spirit nourishes our real hunger—our hunger for God. So don’t burden yourself with worry. Don’t fill your house with things and worry about them if they’d be stolen or broken, instead fill your heart with love for the Lord, then love for others, and you will truly feel like a million bucks hundred fold. Haribol!

On Anxiety

Most people don’t know that I have an anxiety disorder. I feel like standing on an edge of a ravine every time I have to drive alone or take a commute in a public transport. I just don’t want to be left alone with my mind. My mind drives me nuts. Most of the time I drive with someone, I commute with someone etc. Yeah, I had a major depression about it like “O, woe is me, I can’t drive alone; I can’t ride the train, I can’t ride the bus, so on. How will I travel the world? How will I attend conventions? How will I become just a normal guy in the movies who drives on a vast highway in the desert into the unknown?.”  And that may be part of the problem, this wanting to be like some idea of a person my mind creates for me. 

The best thing about my situation though is that, despite this “handicap” I don’t really feel I am deprived of life. (Ok, I can’t do certain things, but so with most “normal” people;  I can’t drive alone—well some people don’t know how to drive at all, and they don’t really need to.) The best thing about this is that after feeling so low and inferior, I was able to learn to appreciate the graces raining down on me each day in the form of family, friends and the sweet love of Our Lord. (If I were in a different situation, with my arrogance, I may even think I am God!) The best thing is that I have learned—despite forcefully bent down--humility and gratitude in this life. I have learned to accept the things I have, and let go of those things I can’t have. 

But I will not be able to realize these things on my own without the compassion of a friend who showed me who I really am. Having learned from his teacher the process of transcending anxieties in this world, he was able to guide me through my suffering.  I don’t know where I will be without my dear teacher who unselfishly shared to me the path through this existence. I hold on to what he said and here I pass on to you:

“A person can only be truly happy, truly satisfied, when he is tasting love for God. The easiest way to come to that platform of love for the Lord is by regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names.”

God is one but with infinite number of names. Allah. Jehova. Yaweh. Krishna. Father. All of these names are invested with His transcendental power. God has made it so easy to approach Him that we can actually experience being with Him, being with the source of happiness, peace and satisfaction, simply by singing or chanting His names.

Jesus Christ said that His greatest commandment is that one should love the Supreme Lord with all his heart, mind, body and entire being. And like unto it, love others.

We are not our bodies. Nor we are our mind which is the reservoir of our fear and anxieties. We are the soul within this body. Satisfying the body or the mind will only bring us temporary happiness. Making the body and mind happy is like making your clothes happy, for the mind and body are exactly that: the material clothing of our spiritual soul. You, the spirit cannot be happy with material things, like a fish out of water cannot be happy when you put him in a bar or a carnival. The spirit can only be happy with spiritual food, and the food for the soul is love for the Supreme soul, like fish returning to sea.

Our help is in the Names of the Lord said the bible. This is a form of help when no one seems to be able to help. No other hand except God’s can reach the deepest recesses of your heart when it is in fear. And the transcendental sound vibration of God’s Names is His hand reaching out to us.

One day, I will be faced with a situation where I will be driven to the end my strength—beyond driving alone, beyond walking alone along the aisle of a bus. Should that day come, in the form of death or some other predicament, there will be fear, but I pray that I’ll be at my weakest, that I will lose all grip to my false idea that I have the power to control my life to make it better, and in this way be able to fully surrender in love the reins of my body, mind and entire being to Him Whose Love holds the universes together! Haribol, chant the Names of God and be happy!

To a Beetle

Dear brother night beetle-- I don’t even know what to call you-- you who stealthily bite and sip blood from my loved ones while they sleep and cause them to have giant bumps from your venom, please forgive me. I have to whack you with this slipper for you are causing us a lot of misery. I could have taken you away in a box or something and set you free somewhere far, but I’m afraid of you, with your mysterious terror. I feel sorry not only for crushing your hideous body, but falling to the floor, it has caused me more sorrow to hit you again as you squirm away. I ask forgiveness to the cause of this squirming, to that beautiful force of life whom I have ended, whom no one in this world, with no amount of money or scientific power can duplicate. I have offended you, the life force in the beetle body, to whom I as another force of life in a human body is related as atmas, spirit. You are my brother, as both of us are parts and parcels of the Paramatma, the supreme life force. I understand that as you had suffered so too shall I suffer in this life or the next, such is the simplicity of divine Karma. Because His love for both of us is impartial, I beg the mercy of our Father, the cause of you and me, the cause not only of all living force, but the cause of everything, to forgive me of my offense. Haribol.